Last year NHS England announced it would no longer issue prescriptions for any kind of ‘homeopathic’ treatment or medicines, for the simple reason that there is no significant evidence that they actually work.
It sparked a legal challenge from the British Homeopathic Association whose members, unsurprisingly, take a different view. It wanted to overturn the decision to no longer routinely fund homeopathy on the NHS, arguing that it brings genuine and measurable benefits to many people.
Now, in a move welcomed by NHS England, that legal challenge has been rejected by the High Court. It agreed there is no real evidence that homeopathy works and, as such, it should not be state-funded. In other words, if people want to receive homeopathic treatment, then they should pay for it themselves.
Homeopathy is a type of ‘alternative medicine’ which first came to prominence around 1800 and was developed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its central principle is summed up as ‘like cures like’. Hahnemann claimed that a substance which causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people would cure similar symptoms in sick people when administered in a highly diluted form.
Even in its early years, homeopathy was recognised as a ‘pseudoscience’ (a belief incorrectly presented as scientific), but nevertheless it grew in popularity, with great demand for homeopathic preparations and remedies. One reason was that in the days before any public health system, when people had to pay directly for the services of a doctor, the remedies and preparations supplied by unqualified homeopaths were far cheaper.
Despite being lambasted by mainstream medical science, homeopathy grew in popularity throughout the 19th century, particularly in the USA, where several homeopathic institutions and colleges were established, helping give it credibility. It faded in the early 20th century, but enjoyed a revival from the late 1970s, linked to the rise of the ‘New Age’ movement which rejected many mainstream beliefs and conventions.
Practising homeopaths – who are not under the same time constraints as many GPs – tended to give longer consultations to people seeking their services, making them feel valued. They also appealed to people’s irrational preference for so-called ‘natural’ remedies and products, claimed to be the basis of homeopathic preparations.
However, several large-scale studies in Europe, Australia and the UK have found little or no evidence that homeopathy actually delivers any clinical benefit. At best it could deliver a small ‘placebo effect’ for some people – in other words, because people believe the homeopathic remedy will help them and they expect to get better, they do… to a degree. Such effects, though, are usually short-lived.
Last year homeopathy was included in a list of treatments which NHS England announced it would no longer routinely issue prescriptions for. Other things on the list either had negligible clinical benefit, were unsafe, or are available ‘over the counter’ at pharmacies, usually at a fraction of the cost of issuing a prescription. Examples include some dietary supplements, herbal treatments, moderate strength painkillers, laxatives, cough and cold remedies, eye drops and sun cream lotions.
It was said that curbing prescriptions for the 18 treatments on the list would save the NHS £141m per year, while a further list published earlier this year added another £100m saving. It covered 35 minor, short-term conditions for which medicines are readily available over the counter and should not be routinely prescribed by GPs.
The legal challenge by the British Homeopathic Association argued that homeopathy should not be on the cost-saving list, but the High Court disagreed. Welcoming its ruling, NHS chief executive Simon Stevens said: “There is no robust evidence to support homeopathy, which is at best a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds. So we strongly welcome the High Court’s clear cut decision to kick out this costly and spurious legal challenge.”